


What Hesiod Never Said

by IShouldBeWriting



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Hellenistic Religion & Lore, Theogony - Hesiod
Genre: At the author's discretion, Backed by academic level research, Drawn From Indo-European Lore, F/F, Fandom Growth Exchange 2015, Gods, Kidnapping, Language of Flowers, No fair shaking the presents, The Fates - Freeform, κοσμογονία | Cosmogony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 12:26:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5127560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IShouldBeWriting/pseuds/IShouldBeWriting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hesiod knew many things about the goddesses. That doesn't mean he wrote all of them down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Hesiod Never Said

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rebecca_selene](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebecca_selene/gifts).



Though her shoulders still shook, Kore was no longer sobbing by the time we found her, Demeter and I. What little sound she made came out as a hoarse rattle of breath. Her garments, no longer fine, delicate, or soft, were streaked with red. Though I noted the dish of pomegranates spilled carelessly on the floor by her knee, in brutal honesty I could not say that all the staining was juice. The light of my torches was weak. Focused as she was on her outrage, perhaps Demeter did not see them, the mottled patches of blood on her daughter’s once fine raiments.

No longer the Maiden Kore, then. No longer her mother’s daughter, but Hades’ unwilling bride. The rage boiled deep inside me that they thought they could treat us as so much chattel. They would pay for their hubris, these gods. (How is it they are so quick to mete out “justice”, cursing mortal men for the self same machinations and follies in which the gods themselves delight?) Brutal Hades, callus Zeus. Oh, they would pay for their hypocrisy.

The pomegranate – that damning fruit – because of it, Kore would not be able to stand before almighty Zeus to plead the case herself. No Titan, Leviathan, nor Cyclops barred the gates but a law as old as time itself. She had consumed the sustenance of Hades’ realm. She was his. Without the forbearance of Olympus’ lord himself, she could not return to the world above.

Demeter crouched weeping by her daughter’s side, graceful hands plucking useless at her daughter’s dirt encrusted clothing. No, she would not be able to put aside the fog dense haze of fury. What plan there was to make must form between my hands.

My words fell softly on black Hekabe’s tufted ears. 

“Go, oh herald of all mothers’ tears. Bear Demeter’s cries to inconstant Zeus. Howl your mourning song until he relents.”

Head lifted, she ran, the ever-sad queen turned faithful canine companion. Wheels set into motion, I turned as well, ready to face what part the Moirai fordained for me within this passion play.

“Lady Demeter, she who is so gracious to the world of man. Go forth to sow your sorrows throughout the world. Let no man reap a bounty from the land, your fertile body, until lord Zeus on high commands your daughter’s safe return.” My cloak of darkest night I took from around my shoulders. I stooped, quickly arranging it to swath gentle Kore in the tender sleep of its embrace. “Till your return with her will I abide. From this day forward my torches’ light shall never leave her side.”

Demeter looked at me, the rounded smoothness of her cheeks dripping sappy pearls like over-ripened peaches. “Light in darkness,” she mused. “Per-se-phone.” The word took life as it rolled around her mouth. (And why should it not? Into each thing she touches, she breathes the spark of life.) 

The Maiden’s eyes fluttered, fighting off sleep’s healing swaddle. “Persephone,” she repeated, accepting her new name in a voice as distant as the whispered wind through greenest grass.

Demeter reached for the newly named Persephone and brushed the dried salt track of tears away. The mother’s tears had been a pearly white, but the grimy crust that graced her daughter’s cheeks bore telltale crimson specks of pulp. My stomach churned at the contrast. The briny purity of Posidon’s oceans versus dingy disappointment, grit, and filth. Even her tears bore testimony; time’s passing in reverse could not be spun. 

I shook my head, relieving myself of maudlin thoughts like drops of rain. Now was not the time to seek omens in tear (as if such a thing had ever been done before). Demeter’s anger would not last forever. Best use it while it's blow rang true. 

“Go,” I bade. “Starve out the animals beloved by huntress Artemis. Disease the grapes of Dionysus that there will be no wine. Bring forth the frost too early that kills bees and buds alike. Deny fairest Aphrodite’s acolytes her sweet perfume. You can mar even the mountains of Ourea. Remember, lady, you are not without your agency. You can take from them as harshly as by them you've been forsaken. Without the bees and flowers there will be no honey made. Without the honey, doves will fly about in fruitless search for there is no ambrosia. Your pain from them will take the food that grants their immortality. Starve them down to be like any mortal man. Show them, Zeus and Hades and these gods with laurel crowned. Bring them begging to their knees these gods by whom she’s so debased.”

Demeter stood and gazed upon her daughter. The anguish which tormented now banked like coals become determination. “Sweet child, my blossom, if they will not let you leave this place, then I will starve them until they send Nemesis herself to banish Hades to Tartarus for what he’s done to you.” With those words Demeter left.

I thought of the Moirai. I thought of Atropos. Did she laugh at my words? I had just called for the gods to be starved to death. Was that not worse than Ixion murdering his wife’s father? He killed but one while I call for deaths enough for Aries. An image of myself bound to a flaming, spinning wheel darted through my mind. It passed like a hare escaping the bow of Artemis. I felt arrows in every corner, preparing to strike me down for arrogant blasphemies.

I slipped my arm around Persephone’s waist, shivering within the warmth of her radiance, dimmed though it might be. Irrelevant, I noticed the remains of flowers still plaited into the cornsilk softness of hair. Dew clung and their petals remained springy and pliable.

So, he has not taken everything. She is yet her mother’s daughter still. 

My heart wept for her, the slim girl with blossoms in her hair. She could no longer afford such innocence. This world of his, it is not kind. One moment’s hesitation showed and it would bleed her dry. 

“Come, Lady,” I urged. “Let me sooth the taint that stains your skin, dress you as befits your station.”

It was a rough thread; the one complex Klothos had spun for her. Klothos and her sisters: ponderous Lakhesis who sorts as wheat from chaff and relentless Atropos whose knife knows no mercy. No, to this girl-child, the Moirai had not been kind. But no one, from the grandest of gods to the most pewling mortal man-child, could snap the thread with which their lives’ are woven. Only Atropos - she of the shining shears - shall bear the right of that decree.

I held Persephone just that little bit tighter. 

To the Fates, my cousins, we are as playthings; she, I, and everything else that lives. I could no more change that fact than I could remove the sadness from sweet Hekabe’s heart. The parts we each would play were foreordained. Accepted or not, it changes nothing.

Though it be my damnation, I will remain by your side through this trial you have been dealt, fairest Persephone. Who am I to ignore your need or my own heart’s calling? 

My resolve tightened along with my grip on her frail shoulders. 

Changeable her fate might not be, but I knew a thing or two about ananke, I did. 

Ananke. Necessity, constraint, inevitability, compulsion.

Live within the Moirai’s decree we must, but how we chose to experience, to embody it? No, that choice was ours alone.

Who am I to say that this is not the fate the Moirai have decreed for me?

I would teach Persephone to live within these constraints, this ananke. My companions - sorrowful Hekabe, intemperate Gale - would help. (Like me, they know a thing or two about the choices one can still seize whilst living within the confining prison of fate.) And should the burden she’d been handed become a noose around her neck, I would be here for that as well. 

Thankfully, Olympus’ lords are not alone in their capacity for mercy. They are my cousins - Atropos, Lakhesis, Klothos - and for her would I willingly prostrate to be their supplicant. Should the noose of queenship ever become too tight, I’d make my bargain, beg their compassion, as I had for Hekabe and Gale. To wield the shears of death I would not ask, but twisting the threads, winding them into a new and softer pattern? For that they would allow me still to barter.

“Guide us now, oh cunning Gale,” I whispered, fingers stroking the musky little she-weasel’s wiry muzzle. “Show Persephone and I what Lakhesis’ loom has woven before us.” 

Black eyes starry bright, the slinky little creature skittered down my trews. She jigged and danced her way across the grey sand floor. Arm cinched tight around my lady’s waist, I followed. Inconstant she might be amidst the society of men, but with me had allowed her fate to be entwine. Persephone and I she would not lead astray.

Passages twist endlessly. The walls’ texture varies. The air filled sooty pockets of cooling lava lately born. Hard granite flecked with the echoing ancient sparkles of quartz. The shifting susurrations of sandstone that had been born, risen, worn, and reformed. Through them all, slim Gale did prance and chitter.

After the unknown passage of time - within the twilight precincts of dark Hades’ domain, Apollo’s transit across the heavens cannot be gauged - Gale stopped before a doorway. The stone surround was thickly carved with plants and creatures unknown. The workings show with lushness of a craftsman with nothing left but tools and time. Some poorly favored relative of Sisyphus perhaps? Or maybe one of clever Arachne’s kin. Beyond, the bathing chamber glowed a light of honeyed amber. It was lit well in comparison to the lengths we’d thus far trod with flickering flames that swayed a saraband across rough plastered walls. 

I grimaced. The light was not a kindness to Persephone’s battered body. 

Men.

The distaste behind the thought bristled with the oil brittled edges of chipped flint knives. I could not remember a time before I’d felt this way. This was the way of it. It had always been so. And, cunning creature that I was, I knew better than to question the formless grey that marked before.

“Let’s get you out of those rags,” I murmured.

Persephone clutched the shredded filthy mess to herself and my heart clenched tight.

“My mother made this for me; embroidered the bindings with her own hand.” She pointed at the once colorful sprigs of lavender, heliotrope, and bay adorning the edges of the once fine cloth. “It is all I have left.”

“You can have more,” I hissed, my own vehemence startling us both. “True, you can no longer be your mother’s daughter, the maid of spring, nor did you consent with Hades to be wed. You are more than what they make of you; your mother, Zeus, and Hades. Though the clothes be rent to tatters, the colors no longer bright, the embellishment of this life’s fabric will now be done by you alone. You are made queen, my lady. You are set on high to rule at Hades’ side. Embrace your place and we will find the path. As sure as great Inanna wound her way amidst the darkness, we will find the spiral, you and I.”

“My Lilith,” she whispered, her hand steadying as it gripped my arm.

“Yes, Lady. Yours. Always.”

She laughed, a harsh, brittle thing with the raucous calling of the crows beneath its gaiety. She was changing before my eyes, grown taller, more womanly, her hair darkened from new minted gold to deepest chestnut. It was wondrous to behold, her beauty brightening once again to light this world’s dark corners. 

She shed the finery which once had clothed her childhood. Reverently, I took the garments, slipping with gratitude into the role that now was mine to play. 

A toe, a calf, a thigh, a hip, into the water slid. I watched the steam devour her hungrily. I thought again of the tears that had run down her cheeks, of the trails they had made to her chin. The tiny work those tears had done were as nothing to the work of the steam and water, cleaning and purifying her. The bath engulfed her and she moaned ever so quietly. If only its touch could be my own. Would she shrink from hardened calluses? Or squirm in secret delight beneath another woman’s caress? 

I kneel behind her, grey sand clinging to my knees. My fingers slide. “Here, lady, I shall gather up the hair from off your nape.”

She shivers at my touch. Damp slender hand reaches back to grasp my own. “Help me bathe and dress, oh Lilith mine?”

I catch my breath.

Howl your mourning song, Queen Hekabe, oh mother of famed Hector. Demeter, club the chest of Zeus with fists like apples hard.

But pray, be not so loud. Beat not the drums so hard. For Lady Dark, the queen of Hades, has claimed me as her own. Yes, I know my fate from hers must likely part. But just for now, while threads still twine, by her side will I bide. 

And who's to say that this is not the fate my cousins for she and I have woven? In every present moment, who says the future they can know? (Poor mad Cassandra, she might argue but we’ll leave her as her thread and story’s long since finished.) 

For now, be not too hasty. We’ll be just fine right here.


End file.
